


Getting Home

by Deannie



Series: One Day at Red Cliff [6]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 10:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5244470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m still not sure of what happened in Goff’s camp, after Red Cliff came down, but I am certain Nathan fired those bullets in anger. I’m also certain it was the first time he’d ever done so—for which he should thank his lucky stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Home

It takes me a long moment to realize that Goff’s men are no longer concentrating their fire on us. I pop my head up for a brief second, and see little but McAuliffe and that damned powerful rifle of his, aiming just to our right. And Nathan, God help him, trying to make his way around the trees to where Goff is hiding. This entire bloody business has our friend’s hackles up, and he is well beyond common sense and self-preservation when it comes to—

Oh, Lord. The other wagon shakes with another hit, and I curse myself for losing focus. I look around, nodding to JD to cover me as I reload and try to find a safe place to relocate. The boulders behind us are going to be a stretch—a distance of exposed space we haven’t risked before now—but they are likely the only chance we have.

There’s no use in shouting with the constant barrage. I grab JD’s shoulder and give him a tug, gesturing toward the small stand of rock. He shakes his head, turning back to the fight. Damn him. I don’t plan on dying thanks to his love of the game!

“We have to move!” I scream in his ear.

The response I get is lost in a cannonade of gunfire, and beyond JD, I see Vin fly backward, Chris following him to cover his fall. The words out of my mouth are hardly gentlemanly.

It is well past time to be going. “Damn it, JD, if we do not move, we’re dead!”

He still doesn’t hear me, but pokes his head up and fires off another shot.

“GET DOWN!”

I dimly hear Buck screaming at us, and roll my eyes. “Yes, Mr. Wilmington,” I mutter, barely hearing the words myself. “I could figure that out myself.”

Clearly, JD can’t. He has become a seasoned gunfighter in these past three years, but he needs a lesson in keeping track of the world around him. I grab him hard by both shoulders and shove him toward the boulders. If McAuliffe hits that dynamite squarely—and if anyone could hit it, it would be him—then I will likely meet God’s wrath sooner than I intended to, but I will not face Buck Wilmington’s as well by allowing his favorite young man to die.

And of course, JD fights me on it. I hear an ominous crack of a different, thicker wood, and I know someone has hit the target. I give JD one more almighty push, watching him slam into the little alcove in the pile of boulders before the world behind me sucks in a breath like the discharge of a cannon.

I’m flying before I realize I am out of time.

*****

That went well. I have no idea how long I have been lying here, but coming to my senses is a welcome surprise.

The darkness is complete but I find myself surprisingly clear-headed as I take stock of what I can. I am lying face down and I cannot feel my back, though the burst of pain as the explosion threw me makes it likely that I don’t want to. Lonnie Mercer comes to mind—lying blackened and dying, but without pain, on the field in Georgia, joking that at least God had seen fit to burn away whatever skin he could feel. I force him from my mind and focus. The ground beneath me is moving in slow, measured breaths. JD.

It’s a long moment of the utter silence that comes after a blast before I’m willing to try to twitch a hand and foot, but all four appendages respond and the pain is minimal. Thank God for small favors.

I need to move. I doubt I am in danger of crushing my young friend, but I have no idea of his injuries and my weight is certainly doing him no good. Just a moment’s rest now, and I’ll try….

*****

The ground is no longer rising and falling below me, though there is fabric, coarse and cheap. Like hounds tooth. JD’s jacket.

JD! He isn’t breathing. Dear Lord!

“Easy now, Ezra,” Buck soothes. “We got you.” His voice is tight, but calm. He would be destroyed if JD were… what?

Where _am_ I?

I shift and the pain is like a fire lit on my back as I bite off a scream. The world is less black around me. There’s air that hasn’t been taken over by red dust and flames. Belly down on the ground, the roughness of a horse blanket, not a hounds tooth coat, under my cheek, I open my eyes and see a warm fire beside me. Not _on_ me, no matter how it feels. Oh God, it hurts!

“Now’s the time for the damn whiskey,” I hear Vin grate in the background. Yes, please. I’d even take rotgut at this point. Anything to dull this pain.

“I ain’t sure…” Buck’s voice moves away from me as he speaks. When the next words are bright and worried and right in my still-buzzing ear, I know I must be losing time somewhere. “Ezra, I’m not sure how to do this, but—”

There’s really not much choice. I cannot drink in this position and I doubt I can hurt much more than I already do. I take a deep breath and rear up onto my hands and knees—and I was wrong. I fight not to vomit as a wave of pain more intense than the last washes over me. It’s gone in moments, though, and I may actually survive. Possibly.

I feel a hand under my chest and let Buck lever me up so I’m sitting back on my heels. He gives me a moment before cracking a smile in the pre-dawn light. “How you feeling, hoss?”

“I’m certain you didn’t just ask that, Mr. Wilmington,” I grumble, reaching awkwardly for the bottle of whiskey he holds out. The first pull of it burns worse than my back. Mr. Larabee’s rotgut, I assume.

“Hey, now, don’t drink it all,” Vin calls out. “You ain’t the only wounded here, remember?”

“No, I don’t remember,” I tell him truthfully. My head is killing me, the bulk of the pain centered on the middle of my forehead, though I’m clear-minded. I remember what happened, of course, but—“You were shot.”

“Yeah, so don’t go taking all the medicine.”

I look around for the first time, ignoring him as I take another few swallows and feel the alcohol finally starting to ease the pain. The world beyond the flames is shrouded in darkness, but I can see that Vin is propped up against a tree nearby, his shoulder roughly bandaged, and JD is lying on his back across the fire from me, looking mostly whole, thank God. But…

“Where are the others?” I wait too long for an answer and my stomach clenches around the whiskey in it. “Buck?”

“Chris and Josiah went after Goff,” he replied, the words thick. “They figure he’s got Nathan.”

Damn it. I take another long swig, courting the bottom of the bottle. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve eaten nothing since breakfast yesterday or the knock I obviously took to the head or perhaps it’s just the pain, but the alcohol hits me suddenly and all together and I sway, crying out slightly with the movement.

“Here, now, let’s get you lying down again, okay?” Buck says quietly over the building drone in my head. I feel hands on my person but can’t and don’t fight them off as I feel myself laid down carefully. The musty equine smell of the blanket is familiar but not.

“Chaucer?” I ask, hearing my words slur. Good Lord, surely I’m not drunk on that little?

“We’ll find him when the dust clears,” Buck promises.

“The dust?”

“Go to sleep, Ezra,” Vin tells me. “We’ll sort it out tomorrow.”

Yes. Maybe that’d be best. Oh, the world is spinning…

*****

The cannons fire in sequence, the roll of thunder ringing across the valley as strike after strike whittles down the fortifications the Union’s built before us.

“Standish, Fornier, Wheeler! 70 degrees north!”

_“…going to find more wood for the fire…”_

The trio of explosions rocks the ground, and my feet thrum with the power of it. The constant barrage makes it hard to hear the Union’s screams, thank God.

_“…reckon we’re gonna be here a while. Hope Nathan’s up to some doctoring…”_

Nathan? Surely he’s not here on the battlefield?

The cannons recede and I’m left with a god-awful pain in my skull and a back full of knives. Someone is crashing through brush nearby and I open my eyes to find a smoldering campfire close at hand in the midmorning light. _Bright_ midmorning light.

God, I’m hung over. My own groan is enough to cow me.

“How you doing there, Ezra?” Vin asks from somewhere behind me and to my left, a shadow of laughter in his voice.

I take a deep breath and steel myself to sit upright. The maneuver leaves me panting and cold, but I manage it without screaming and the pain isn’t much worse than when I was lying down. “I believe I shall live, Mr. Tanner,” I whisper harshly. “Though it had little to recommend it at the moment.”

He chuckles. “Told you not to drink all the whiskey.”

“Mr. Larabee’s private stock of swill can hardly be considered whiskey.” I look up, finally, intending to check on his condition, and freeze in horror at the sight before me. “Dear God.”

The cliff face is gone. The _valley_ is gone… “What happened?”

“The blast brought down the whole front of it,” Vin says bleakly. “Damn near buried us all.”

It should have. The entire rock front—red sandstone that was beautiful and majestic just yesterday—is so much trash strewn across the land before it. That all of us survived is a miracle.

“Or just plain pig-headedness,” Vin says out of the blue. Perhaps I spoke aloud a moment ago. “Looks like you got the worst of it,” he offers lightly. His tone turns immediately dark. “Depending on what Chris and Josiah find.”

I nod, feeling the skin on my shoulders pull. The sound of crackling there has me cringing and I wonder how badly I’m burned—badly enough that I can’t feel what I’m sure is the worst of it.

“How long has it been?” And where are the horses? Chaucer knows better than to stick around when there’s ordinance about. He’ll be waiting for me to call him. Peso probably headed back to the stables in Four Corners, annoyed to have had to be part of the whole proceedings in the first place. Buck and JD’s horses are more of a worry, flighty girls that they are.

“Buck dug you all out after dark last night,” Vin says quietly. “Chris and Josiah should be back soon.” He points with his good hand and I notice a cup on the ground near where my head was lying. “Josiah had some of Nathan’s piss in his saddlebag. Help yourself.”

My stomach turns, the alcohol still roiling through it with nauseating intensity. “I believe I’ll abstain.”

“No telling when you’ll get something proper for the pain,” he counsels seriously. “I’d drink it if I were you.”

I swallow hard, but move slowly and carefully to retrieve the vessel. “I expect you’re right.”

He snorts. “First time for everything.”

The tea is as horrible as ever and keeping it down is a trial. JD shifts across the fire from me. His eyes open and I see them focus on me blearily.

“Awake again, Mr. Dunne?” I ask, hoping the simple act of speaking won’t cause me to lose my tenuous control over my body. He nods and begins to take stock, and I content myself with the fact that, for now, I know those friends I have around me are whole and healing.

******

“Are we going to have to tie you to your horse, there, Ezra?”

I glare at Buck as he stands beside Chaucer, but he’s not much more than a blur in the predawn light. I have not imbibed like this is a very long time, and the combination of alcohol, laudanum, and searing pain is enough to have me dreaming of a week in my feather bed. Hell, at this point, a week on that horrible cot in the clinic sounds preferable to being upright.

Chaucer, God love him, stands perfectly still, but every sway of my exhausted body shifts the bandages over my back and sets my teeth to grinding. My kingdom for a wagon!

“Might not be a bad idea,” Nathan puts in. I may have had a cup too much, but I’m not too drunk to hear the defeat in his tone. “Josiah’s already got McAuliffe strapped on.”

“But _I_ am not a criminal of dubious merit,” I say. I believe I said it, at any rate.

“Sure you ain’t,” Buck replies condescendingly. He even pats me on the knee. I would hit him if I were entirely certain of which shade before me is the real article.

“I’ll be able to sit my horse, Mr. Wilmington,” I assure him. “You, I believe, have more pressing matters than my safety.”

Buck grins—I assume—and steps away from Chaucer’s flank. “I wasn’t sure you were aware there _are_ more pressing matters than your safety,” he says. I believe there’s sarcasm thick in there.

“I don’t know, Buck. He seems pretty piss poor at taking care of himself.” Mr. Larabee walks up, Pony’s reins in his hand as he surveys us all. “Get yourselves home safe,” he commands. “We’ll be along as soon as we take care of business.”

“I still don’t like the idea of you guys going off without us,” JD puts in.

I don’t relish the thought myself, but it’s obvious, even to a drunken sot like me, that Nathan is in no fit shape to engage Goff again, and JD, for all his bravado, would be more a danger to himself than a help, with one arm broken and a fair concussion. And as much as I might like to be there to see Ambrose Goff brought to justice, I am not fool enough to endanger all of us with my own transient infirmity.

“Decision’s been made, JD,” Buck tells him, the older brother silencing the younger. “You keep a close eye on our friend McAuliffe, there,” he says, looking toward the fourth of our horses, where Goff’s right-hand man sits tied and cowed and finished. “Don’t want him missing his own turn with the judge, now do we?”

“Have we finished with baiting our pathetic companion?” I ask bluntly. “The sun will be up in minutes, and it is clearly time we were all on our ways.”

“Hell, he’s a mean drunk,” Vin calls as he rides up to us on Peso. His arm is still in the sling, but I doubt it will remain so once he’s out of sight of Nathan. “But we all knew that, didn’t we?”

Please. “I believe I have sufficiently apologized for that unfortunate incident, Mr. Tanner,” I begin.

“Just get home, Ezra,” Chris says, mounting his horse and nodding to Josiah and Buck to do the same.

“Stay safe,” Nathan puts in and Josiah nods his acknowledgement. They ride out on the Perdido Trail while we turn toward home.

I hope to see them all safe and Goff in chains when they return.

******

“I ain’t letting you near me, darkie, so disappear.”

I shake my head and exchange a glance with JD over the fire. McAuliffe is doing himself no favors. Nathan stands over the man for a long moment more before during back toward the light with a sigh.

“You can’t make him take help,” JD tells him gently.

Nathan snorts his anger and takes the coffee I hold out to him. “Hand’s going go gangrene if he don’t let me look after it.”

“I believe that’s more his affair than yours,” I remind him.

“‘Cept that I’m the one who shot him in the first place.”

Nathan’s guilty admission brings the fledgling discussion to a halt and we sit in quiet for a while as the sun sets. We’ll be home by mid-afternoon tomorrow, which won’t be a moment too soon for me. A full day in the saddle has sobered me up, certainly, but I do not think I have been quite so miserable since the war.

“Let me take a look at those burns, Ezra,” Nathan says finally.

“Lord, must you?” I ask with what I consider my usual reticence. Much as I know medical help is both necessary and beneficial, I have never liked being touched nor prodded, and Nathan is prone to do both in the service of his art.

He freezes a moment before shrugging. “I reckon not,” he allows meekly. “Just wanted to make sure—”

“Nathan,” I call sharply, making him jerk his head up so his eyes meet mine. “I am not so foolhardy as some,” I say carefully, glaring at McAuliffe. “I for one, much as I dislike the need for medical aid, am fully aware of your expertise in the field and would welcome your ministrations.” He grins in thanks and I cock my head and lift a finger in warning. “So long as they are _gentle_ ministrations.”

He reaches into his medical bag and pulls out a tin of cream. Oh, that cream! I do not know what concoction is in there, but it soothes minor pains to nothing and should take the edge off of the ache and sting in my back nicely.

“I think you could have some laudanum—”

“No,” I bark back, quieting immediately. “I am sorry, but I believe I have had enough laudanum for several lifetimes.”

Nathan nods as I turn away and take off my shirt to expose the bandages covering my back. The pull of the movement is enough to bring tears to my eyes.

“Reckon you won’t be wanting any whiskey then, either?” he teases, relaxing finally.

“There is no such thing as too much whiskey, Mr. Jackson,” I remind him, holding in a groan as he begins to peel away the wrappings. “In this or any other lifetime.”

******

I will have to shoot someone today.

The door rattles slightly with another too-enthusiastic knock, and I roll my eyes, levering myself up carefully and sitting on the edge of my delightful, comfortable, warm feather bed. My watch declares that it is only ten-thirty in the morning.

“Ezra!” JD calls.

Where is my gun, now?

“Ezra, we got a telegram from Chris,” he tells me through the door.

I rise, the pain of the cuts on my back finally easing after four days, though the burns have begun to itch and hurt in a way nothing else ever has. Nathan assures me it’s an encouraging sign, but I could do without it. As it is, the discomfort of it kept me awake until nearly four and now here’s JD at this ungodly hour…

I open the door, hoping the look on my face is as murderous as my mood.

It clearly is, as JD takes a step back. “Sorry, Ezra, I didn’t mean to wake you—”

“Then perhaps banging on my door should not have been your first choice,” I bite back. He gives me the hangdog look that three years of adulthood have yet to blunt and I relent. “What does it say?”

“Huh?” he asks.

Lord, save me… “The telegram, JD?”

“Oh, yeah!” He smiles. “They got Goff. They’re in Gosset Creek.”

“Good Lord,” I reply. “That was quite a merry chase.” That’s three days’ ride itself.

He nods. “I know. Doesn’t sound like they ran into too many problems.” He hands the telegram to me.

> `TO: J DUNNE, FOUR CORNERS SHERIFF  
>  FROM: C LARABEE, C/O CA, GOSSET CREEK SHERIFF`
> 
> `AG CAUGHT.`
> 
> `HEADED HOME.`
> 
> `WILL SEND WORD AT MINER’S HOLLOW.`

“Typically terse,” I remark. It occurs to me suddenly that I am standing in my nightshirt in my doorway. “Perhaps I might be allowed to dress and shave before I am made privy to any more revelations?”

He looks at me a moment, as if processing my words, and his ears turn predictably pink. “Oh, yeah, sorry, Ezra, I just…” He rubs at the splint on his arm, which only serves to remind me how much my back itches.

“I’ll be down soon, JD,” I tell him simply. “How is our prisoner?” Poor Nathan must be watching him. Not that McAuliffe is well enough to mount an escape attempt, but simply being in the same room with the man has become difficult for everyone.

“Nathan says he ain’t got long if he won’ t let him take care of it.”

The man is about to be done in by his own idiocy. The gangrenous smell coming off of his hand by the end of our first day home was unmistakable to any of us who have spent time in a military hospital. I’ve seen Nathan use leeches and knives to good effect before, sucking out the infected blood and cutting away the disgusting rot before it can fester further, but of course, McAuliffe wouldn’t allow it. Now we’re past the point where that would make a difference, but he’s even less likely to let Nathan come at him with a saw. The fool.

I try not to remember the fool _I_ was when first I met our fine healer. Clearly, I’ve lived long enough to learn my lesson. “Men make their own choices, Mr. Dunne,” I tell him flatly. “I shall dress for the day and take over for Nathan.” I grimace. “With a handkerchief handy.”

“It _is_ ripe in there,” JD admits. “I swear, I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

“I have,” I whisper to myself as I close the door on him and on the memories of a certain field hospital outside of Atlanta, years ago. I’m sure similar memories contribute to Nathan’s ill temper these days, but they’re sure to be only a small part.

Once we arrived home, he set about getting JD and myself settled and had both Nettie Wells and our apothecary, Mr. Greene, sent for. McAuliffe would see none of them, and if Vin had been here to listen to him go on about how Mrs. Wells was nothing but an “ape-loving whore,” he’d be dead already and we wouldn’t have to be living through smells I hoped never to smell again.

Regardless of the fact that JD and I could easily handle guarding the idiot as he expires, Nathan has insisted on taking his turn, demanding that the two of us get our rest—he _is_ the only one of us recovering from a bullet wound, but it doesn’t seem to matter much to him—and subjecting himself to McAuliffe’s increasingly delirious ramblings and hatred. Because in his mind, he deserves it.

I’m still not sure of what happened in Goff’s camp, after Red Cliff came down, but I am certain Nathan fired those bullets in anger. I’m also certain it was the first time he’d ever done so—for which he should thank his lucky stars. And now McAuliffe will die from the wounds Nathan inflicted…

Lord, this is a mess, isn’t it? God willing, Josiah will be back soon to set it right. If there is any one of us who knows about anger and regret, it’s our preacher.

I fasten my tie neatly and settle my seams. Oh, I do hate the look of walking around town in shirtsleeves! There’s nothing for it for now, however—the pain of a jacket is abominable. Unfortunately, it also leaves me less than adequately armed, and I strap on my belt holster with a sigh. One lone gun seems little safety.

There’s little safety to be had anywhere, though, is there?

I salute my reflection with a stiff arm, grimacing at the pain. I guess that’s why we’re here.

“God help Four Corners, in that case,” I tell myself with a smile.

God help us all.

*****  
the end


End file.
